I've been to Iraq. It really is worse then is reported.
Worse than what? Reported by who?
And just as importantly, when? When did you visit Iraq? During, before or after which war?
It's hard to understand what you're talking about, because you are being terribly unspecific and your grammar is all over the place. And what quality of life studies are you referring to? What did they say? I'm sure you have a point, so maybe you should slow down and make it.
But hey, at least you're not throwing stones from a class house by claiming you live in reality. Oh wait....You are.
A "class" house? Really? I'm tempted to leave it right there.
Look. All wars are manufactured on the political level. Nobody forced Bush Sr. and the coalition to go storming into Iraq. It was a deliberately marketed war complete with spy craft, manipulative diplomacy, fake atrocity stories; the whole nine yards. It wasn't about freeing anybody. It was about securing oil resources and expanding US influence in the middle east.
Is this really news to you? Do you REALLY believe that it was about freeing the helpless and fighting the good fight to spread democracy and popular justice? That crap was just a sales pitch to get the trusting masses to sign their lives (and tax dollars) away to the government military weapons dealers and oil barons. And I'm sorry, but Santa isn't real either.
Get it together and do the research! Wars serve nobody but the elite. We are being manipulated. And yes, we ARE being bombarded from the 'class' houses, but I'm not the one throwing those stones.
I had the good fortune to be able to talk at length with an ex-pat Iraqi who had a very different reality to report. He came from a long family line and described his father's life and his own. Essentially, life in Iraq wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as the Western press dictated, that so long as you didn't speak against Saddam, everybody could go about their days at a high standard of living.
A "brutal dictator" to us is a "king" to others. And the West, given its lack of wisdom and total inability to govern itself with any degree of humanity, has no business marching about trumpeting who should and should not be allowed to exist in the modern world. We preach democracy, but we haven't got one. We live as peasants under a ruling class, except our kings and dukes and princes have zero interest in maintaining a happy populace. In this bankrupted economy, a small percentage of Americans are making more money than ever before. And we know why that is. Corruption. That's our system.
Please read the cease fire documents from the First Gulf War and get back to us.
Really? That's your rationalization? That the cease-fire terms of a previous artificially manufactured and totally mis-represented war provides justification for a second one?
See, the problem with living in a make-believe reality is that while you can fool yourself into self-respect it doesn't change the fact that you still look and sound like a complete fool to those around you. Better to invest in objective reality.
With views like that, I'd be willing to bet you are locked down in some hopeless position so that the more sense you make and the further your reach, the tighter the thumbscrews become.
There's a reason only church-going cognitively dissonant marionettes get elected these days.
Muslim pastor burns a Bible, Christians do nothing. Which group is wrong here?
The values are simply put in different places. When it comes to mind control, end results are what count. Our great Christian Nation is working itself up into a lunatic froth over Iran as we speak, just as it did over Afghanistan and Iraq, using the very same lies and media contortions. And we're happily falling for it again. Clearly our populace has only the barest minimum capacity to learn from mistakes.
Basically, we just rationalize murder and resource theft using different tactics. While I'm sure it was considered, there are simply too many atheists in the West for a big, well-publicized bible burning to have the desired effect in motivating people into a nice profitable war. Though, bible-burning would certainly have an effect on a significant portion of the U.S., propaganda needs to capture the hearts and minds of as big a demographic as possible. There are just too many atheists in the West who would laugh at the "insult" and who would instead feel superior and perhaps even pity toward the East for using such a tactic. So the mind-control experts decided to use the whole terrorist line to get both the religious and non-religious involved in self-destructive behavior.
As I said, the end results are what count; murder and misery. That's the payoff for the dark side.
Getting caught up in the oh-so-enticing mind trap of comparing us to them is how they catch us and make us do insane things to each other.
Happiness in the view of these researchers appears to be a lack of stress due to resource security. Food, shelter, health and crap made in China. You know; the American Dream we're all told we must follow from the cradle.
If you go about seeking these resources through conventional means and with conventional aims, then yeah, you can pin a price tag on it. We've been trained to seek out only one set of narrow solutions to life.
But if you re-build your mind and your systems for moving through life, then happiness comes with a much lower price tag. And I'm not talking about simply finding bargains on the same consumer crap. I'm talking about alternative health, energy and food systems. Knowing your food producer. Ditching the TV set. -I don't mean going out to live in the woods or in a commune or something extreme like that. I'm not talking about the hippie lifestyle, though that can work if it's done right. I'm simply saying that with the right approach and open eyes and the courage to embrace new systems because they work and not because they are promoted by the status quo, you can get by in a very healthy manner without having to play the banker's game. Many of the people I know make a LOT less than $75,000, and they are among the healthiest, strongest, most capable and, by far, the happiest people I've ever known. I wonder if the guys who created this study know what it means to be really happy. As it happens, I also know a bunch of people who make more than $75,000 and while there are certainly some happy people among them who have figured this stuff out, the demographic also seems to include a whole lot of directionless, boring and empty people who are demonstrably NOT happy. I've seen many who are always living with this odd tension they cannot name or put their finger on, or are even aware of, but I see them walk around with a slightly pinched expression as though they just know on some level that they missed the train to somewhere they were hoping to visit but somehow forgot.
Oh dear. Sir, you scare me. Not because I think you're right, but because I think you're a fruitcake.
That you felt compelled to pipe up and voice your rejection suggests something about your fundamental nature. And no, it's probably not what you'd like to think.
When hostages are taken, when people are killed, when terrorists use terror to spread their message, what is the ONE thing which never, ever happens?
Their demands and manifestos are NOT made public. Why? Because this encourages similar crimes. So something here is seriously off.
Mind control is quite real; Manchurian Candidate style mind programming works; we know this. You can make people, using hypnotism and drugs and personality splitting trauma, to do whatever you want them to do on auto-pilot. This stuff works, and it would therefore be naive to assume that it isn't used.
My guess is that this whole current example was deliberately put together so as to seed the public with the idea that the populace needs culling so that when the authorities take action to cull the population, (as it always intended to, via all those empty prison camps on U.S. soil), the public will be mired down in debate. It is of particularly convenient timing because Bill Gates' bullshit foundation for population reduction has been caught with creepy ties to Monsanto. (i.e., Population reduction through engineered food shortages.)
Heck, read the responses here; there are actually people on Slashdot who think that culling the population is a good idea. -Of course, nobody has explained to them that THEY will be included among the culled. (What? You think they only kill people in Africa? Your white, pasty arse is too good for the gas chamber? Ha. Think again. The economy is being sunk for a reason. Caucasians were useful for a time, used to invent the tools of technological/industrial domination, but the Chinese are the favored race because they are genetically better at knowing their place.)
People consistently fail to take into account when considering what is best for the human race that we are in the present position of over-population by design, and were put here exactly by the very ones who are now trying to program us to accept our own harvesting.
These days, if you can swim your way through the sewage of media and entertainment without losing such basic perspectives, then you are basically super-human.
Yes, all the research into how to "Manufacture Consent" has shown us that a significant portion of the population is indeed cattle which can be easily manipulated, managed and bled without it ever being aware of the fact.
Why market to the small percentage of thinking humans when the real money is in bleeding cows?
Advertising and marketing, (essentially global mind-control), is a depressing reality. It works. And it hurts to watch because, even though I eat them, I still think cows are nice animals. They're so trusting and gentle.
This is why free-range is important to me. If I'm going to consume lower life forms in order to continue my own existence, I want to make sure they live good lives.
The same holds for humans. Apple pampers the livestock.
Asian sales to the West are hurting, I guess, now that a third of Americans are looking seriously at homelessness.
I notice that this kind of spam is picking up in frequency, which is probably a kind of desperation tactic. I know that whenever possible I "Buy Western". It's actually not all that hard; just don't buy crappy, stupid things made in the East. If somebody started making computer parts over here, I'd be set.
Now if only we could take the psychopathic high business/political class who destroyed America and drown them in the lifeless waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the world would be set!
Looks like the water viscosity of the Gulf has caused the Gulf Stream circuit to collapse. For real. Who knows how this will fuck up the planet, but it appears that this is the other shoe dropping. Ice Age, here we come!
Have you shot a psychopath in the head today? (You know, for killing us all?)
Well, that's a shame. I confess I had my hopes up a bit there.
-You decided to hang your coat on the post which didn't take any work to deal with.
I even put a compliment at the bottom of the other as a tip of the hat for accepting the challenge it represented, but instead you chose to go for the easy, dirty kill rather than ask specific questions or make any efforts.
There are numerous flaws in your above thinking, but you seem to have chosen a path which would make my pointing them out a labor of futility.
So unless you've got something useful to add, I'll bid you a goodbye now.
Yeah, or further analysis will show the effect is real, they'll discover amazing new physics, win a Nobel Prize and get their names in every future physics text.
Sure there may be some resistance to and skepticism of the idea (and this "hm I'm skeptical" isn't even close to the resistance some ideas that successfully changed science forever faced), but that's only natural when the hypothesis seems to contradict existing evidence. When and if they are able to collect more convincing data and rule out alternative explanations, or make successful predictions based on their idea, you'll find the skepticism reduced in direct proportion.
This is certainly the ideal, but I'm afraid I'm far too cynical to believe that there isn't more than simply two forces acting here. (More, that is, than the force of ignorance and the force of knowledge.) I believe, and there is ample evidence, for a third force; that of fear. -Fear, specifically, of losing control. -Which is, of course, the basic, boiled down simple version, but it is this fear which prompts advertisers to manipulate populations into buying certain products, (from razor blades to presidents). It is the same fear which keeps the true state of technological advancement a secret hidden away on military proving grounds.
I think the basic difference between us, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you don't believe that people lie to one another or that they manipulate or try to control one another, or that if they do, people are too smart for these tactics to ever succeed.
As history has shown repeatedly. What's funny is that if their hypothesis is shown to be true, it'll become mainstream and folks like you will be calling that the new "conventional wisdom and authority" that nobody is allowed to question.
Really? You think I exist in a perma-state of rebellion for no reason other than it suits me? Like a fashion or sense of self? Assumptions, if you are not careful, will often say a great deal about the person making them, so you might want to watch where you fling yours. No, you are making a false reading of me. The problem is that I have a fairly good idea of what is actually going on and what the shape of reality actually looks like; if mainstream culture somehow caught up with that, I would feel as though the world were on the right track. Mainstream culture, however, so long as the power remains as it is under the current paradigm, will not be allowed to know the true shape of reality. Not unless the walls break down. This IS happening to some extent; psychopaths do tend to kill the host and cause their own support systems to rapidly decay, but there are control systems operating above them which are still very powerful. They are ALSO failing, but sadly, I don't think we're anywhere even close to "out of the woods". Indeed, I strongly suspect that billions of people are going to meet their ends in total ignorance.
What's funny is how you say this, but we only know anything about the truly bizarre and unfathomably weird ways the universe works because scientists thought WAY outside the box and figured these things out. But because you've locked yourself into this "mainstream science is dogmatic and only I am the free thinker" box, you can't see it.
Hardly. The industrial revolution was carefully shaped. The out-of-the-box thinkers were guided and allowed to believe whatever they wanted. The whole world is a stage, and the amazing part is that people think the lines on their scripts are coming from their own souls when nothing could be further from the truth.
But of course, that will be difficult (or impossible?) for you to understand. How could you? Your structure for collecting knowledge doesn't sound like it includes anything which is not approved by orthodox science and culture.
But because you've locked yourself into this "mainstream science is dogmatic and only I am the free thinker
Well good thing that isn't how it's done. Instead, the patterns humans see are examined in detail, with actual data and the scientific rigor necessary to separate accurate observations of real patterns, from false matches. We're only truly good at recognizing patterns directly related to survival -- the appearance of family, whether the members of another tribe coming close appear friendly or hostile, what a tiger hiding in a bush looks like, or the appearance and behaviors of pray animals, or the types and locations of tasty fruits. Everything else -- and even those -- are highly susceptible to the common failings of various biases and logical fallacies. It takes effort and discipline to eliminate these things, and once you do, you find that many of the patterns humans thought they had recognized turned out to be completely false. Some are not, though, and become established science.
This is both true and completely false. It sounds great though, which is the point of a useful rationalization. But seriously; you're telling me that we're only good at recognizing patterns directly related to our survival? Well then how am I able to separate pencil crayons from markers? Or nickles from quarters? Or pick out the funny comic strips? Or the good books from the dull ones. Or the attractive paintings from the ugly ones. Either, according to your premise, we must allow that the pattern recognition skills evolved directly for survival can also be applied to non-survival critical scenarios, or we must simply say that you are wrong.
Including the patterns seen by scientists. It's humorously detached from reality to say that scientists reject all pattern locks based on scientific dogma, when their own intuitive pattern matching is how most scientists come up with their initial ideas.
You remind me of a teacher I once had who explained why the Democratic system of Government is a smooth-running, wonderful system. He pointed to all the checks and balances in place and drew lovely flowcharts and completely failed to recognize the problem that many of the people involved in government are corrupt bastards intent on breaking systems for personal gain, or that such people had indeed found many successful ways to do this. He seemed to not even hear any of this when the issue and examples were raised. He just looked vaguely confused and went back to his pattern. -In a similar manner, I note that you ignored my comment regarding psychological issues among scientists (and all people, actually), stemming from school-yard bullying and sexual anxieties which lead to a vast array of personal issues preventing clear thinking.
Typically, people respond to this by pretending nothing was said, or perhaps they simply fail to hear me. I don't know, but for whatever reason, you just demonstrated that phenomenon once again while describing the ideal version of science. I have no problem with the ideal version of science. But it doesn't really work that way, and if you think it does, you are living in a fantasy. The problem is, you are not alone in that fantasy. Most people seem to live in a peculiar sort of dream state all the time without being aware of it.
Astrology is a perfect example of human pattern-matching run amok due to confirmation bias and other failings of the undisciplined mind. People will always tell you about the times they met some aggressive alpha male and asked them if they were an Aries and they were! They won't tell you about the times they were wrong, often because they don't remember. They won't tell you about the time they met someone with no obvious personality quirks and so didn't bother asking them their sign. If they're taking money from you in exchange for a reading, they sure as hell won't tell you that your subconscious body language in response to their vague pronouncements is telling them what they need to know to further tune their statements to convince you that the Stars Know All. Astrology i
I started to address the points in your post, but your grammar is garbled up in a way which is abnormal for you, so I thought you might be in a weird head-space and that you might be regretting having hit the "Submit" button.
Would you like a do-over or should I just jump in and eviscerate your post, donkey-speak and all?
When I first saw the original article earlier this week, my immediate reaction was, "Bait & Switch. Better to sit this one out." -This seems like another small scale version of the Fake Moon Landing; innocently presented to invite curiosity, and then behead those foolish enough to stick their necks out and question conventional wisdom and authority. A great way to remind people that they will be punished for thinking without permission.
We'll have to see how this unfolds, but I'm getting a witch-hunt feel off this. I wouldn't be surprised if the authors of the original study are revealed later on to be the academic equivalent of child molesters or something.
The only fools, though, will be the people who allow this kind of tactic to throw them off the scent. The universe works in weird ways, and you can't be put off by this kind of silliness if you want to explore. You will NEVER have permission or approval to explore outside the box. Never. You just have to ignore the protests and get on with educating yourself. The TV talking head people can scowl all they want. Only cowards are prevented by laughter and the hairy eyeball!
I mis-read it as, "Photoshop 1.3 Beginner's Guide"
And I thought, "Wow! Now THERE'S something really interesting! I wonder what the author's logic was to have gone and written a modern book on such an out-of-date piece of software? Cool!"
Then it got boring very fast. -Not that the real subject isn't interesting and relevant, but it sure isn't as intriguing as the false idea!
I think the subconscious desire to see patterns where there are none, and to read more into the patterns that are there than actually exists, and to be unsatisfied with the real mechanisms behind why they exist and yearn for something "deeper", can be even stronger. Human beings are pattern matching machines to the point where it takes great self-discipline to avoid seeing false ones, and we love to ascribe meaning to every pattern we see real or not. But then we are unhappy when the true nature of the pattern is revealed. For thousands of years mankind has dreamed of a world invisible to our senses, something that permeated space all around us and could let us connect to others thousands of miles away. And then it turns out that such a thing exists, in the electromagnetic field. Oh but that's manipulated with boring old science and tools, so it doesn't count. So they still look for their vague "energy", while ignoring the real mysteries of the universe.
This is a very valid point, and it is one which must be wrestled with. The problem is that people, especially those in the sciences, have a tendency to go too far the other way, to the point of ignoring their perceptive abilities altogether. We are good at recognizing patterns because recognizing patterns improves the chances of survival. One would think that our naturally evolved systems have gotten pretty darned good at it. There are certainly false positives, but to ignore ALL pattern locks based on popular scientific dogma seems foolish to me. -Especially when much of that dogma, in otherwise smart and educated people, is wrapped up in psychological knots related to childhood bullying and sexual anxieties. This leads to horribly dissonant logic which cannot be seen unless one has worked on untying those knots most of us are afflicted with due to the nature of the education system itself. Most people never touch that stuff throughout their lives. I know very, very few people in the sciences who have worked on this aspect of themselves, and as such, their views and thinking remains quite distorted.
One example resulting from this distortion is the reaction to taboo material. Astrology, for instance, claims that the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun bears some effect upon personality. Personality is a result of subtle atomic reactions in the brain, (I am supposing). Those who (improperly) use science have laughed at this claim, saying that it is "impossible" for a distant stellar body to have any impact upon such reactions. And yet, right now, we are in the process of recognizing that the subtle atomic reactions which govern nuclear decay rates are indeed doing some peculiar things in time with the Earth's relative position to the Sun.
I am not afraid of allowing my pattern recognizers to do their work and indeed, to hone their ability. I have become quite good at sorting false signal from true, but more importantly, I have become quite good at allowing myself to be wrong. Because there ARE false patterns, and when one tests for them, or when another person points out an error, it is important to be able to let go of false data. But I believe it is also important to use our skills of observation and to work on honing them rather than let them atrophy in favor of only using empirical study. I think it is enormously advantageous to use both.
In other words, I'm not going to wait around for authority figures to approve of my explorations. It's useful when they get around to it, (if they ever do), but to sit waiting is an unnecessary limitation, particularly when the authorities these days are largely corrupt and psychopathic. We have been taught to mistrust ourselves, and I am convinced that this is a manipulation to prevent us from becoming powerful and aware.
But everybody must believe as they will. This is where my thinking has taken me, I have found it fascinating and rewarding, (if sometimes humbling), and I do not need to be told I am allowed to be here. This is where Religion and low Science overlap; its practitioners are meek and they seek approval. True Science does not seek approval; it seeks corroboration for logical reasons, but there aren't as many true scientists in the world as one might suppose.
That would make sense, except the nature of the observations can't be explained as being simply the result of repetitive behavioral mechanisms.
It's really not the sort of thing I can express easily. But if you are interested, it can be observed. Just map backwards from where you are in your life and look at the major events which have affected you and the kinds of personalities which surrounded you at those times. If you are old enough to have traveled through the circuit three or more times, you'll have enough data to work with. Then it's like one of those 3D posters where you have to un-cross your eyes in order to see the effect. It looks like a mess of fuzz until it leaps into view.
But I've never met anybody who is willing to do this or who has any interest in it. I suspect this might be due to a subconscious desire to ride the patterns in earnest without knowing how the mechanism works. Perhaps because it's hard to take the universe seriously when you can see the wheels turning. After a while, you begin to feel stuck in time, if that makes any sense. When you try to change things, you realize that you can't, or if you do, events and values surrounding you will alter to balance the equation so that there is no change.
Whatever.
Don't bother. It's just something which you'll explore if you feel like exploring. I really wouldn't recommend it to most people.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been to Iraq. It really is worse then is reported.
Worse than what? Reported by who?
And just as importantly, when? When did you visit Iraq? During, before or after which war?
It's hard to understand what you're talking about, because you are being terribly unspecific and your grammar is all over the place. And what quality of life studies are you referring to? What did they say? I'm sure you have a point, so maybe you should slow down and make it.
-FL
But hey, at least you're not throwing stones from a class house by claiming you live in reality. Oh wait....You are.
A "class" house? Really? I'm tempted to leave it right there.
Look. All wars are manufactured on the political level. Nobody forced Bush Sr. and the coalition to go storming into Iraq. It was a deliberately marketed war complete with spy craft, manipulative diplomacy, fake atrocity stories; the whole nine yards. It wasn't about freeing anybody. It was about securing oil resources and expanding US influence in the middle east.
Is this really news to you? Do you REALLY believe that it was about freeing the helpless and fighting the good fight to spread democracy and popular justice? That crap was just a sales pitch to get the trusting masses to sign their lives (and tax dollars) away to the government military weapons dealers and oil barons. And I'm sorry, but Santa isn't real either.
Get it together and do the research! Wars serve nobody but the elite. We are being manipulated. And yes, we ARE being bombarded from the 'class' houses, but I'm not the one throwing those stones.
-FL
That would be propaganda talking.
I had the good fortune to be able to talk at length with an ex-pat Iraqi who had a very different reality to report. He came from a long family line and described his father's life and his own. Essentially, life in Iraq wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as the Western press dictated, that so long as you didn't speak against Saddam, everybody could go about their days at a high standard of living.
A "brutal dictator" to us is a "king" to others. And the West, given its lack of wisdom and total inability to govern itself with any degree of humanity, has no business marching about trumpeting who should and should not be allowed to exist in the modern world. We preach democracy, but we haven't got one. We live as peasants under a ruling class, except our kings and dukes and princes have zero interest in maintaining a happy populace. In this bankrupted economy, a small percentage of Americans are making more money than ever before. And we know why that is. Corruption. That's our system.
-FL
Please read the cease fire documents from the First Gulf War and get back to us.
Really? That's your rationalization? That the cease-fire terms of a previous artificially manufactured and totally mis-represented war provides justification for a second one?
See, the problem with living in a make-believe reality is that while you can fool yourself into self-respect it doesn't change the fact that you still look and sound like a complete fool to those around you. Better to invest in objective reality.
-FL
Okay. I admit it. I chuckled that time.
-FL
With views like that, I'd be willing to bet you are locked down in some hopeless position so that the more sense you make and the further your reach, the tighter the thumbscrews become.
There's a reason only church-going cognitively dissonant marionettes get elected these days.
-FL
Muslim pastor burns a Bible, Christians do nothing. Which group is wrong here?
The values are simply put in different places. When it comes to mind control, end results are what count. Our great Christian Nation is working itself up into a lunatic froth over Iran as we speak, just as it did over Afghanistan and Iraq, using the very same lies and media contortions. And we're happily falling for it again. Clearly our populace has only the barest minimum capacity to learn from mistakes.
Basically, we just rationalize murder and resource theft using different tactics. While I'm sure it was considered, there are simply too many atheists in the West for a big, well-publicized bible burning to have the desired effect in motivating people into a nice profitable war. Though, bible-burning would certainly have an effect on a significant portion of the U.S., propaganda needs to capture the hearts and minds of as big a demographic as possible. There are just too many atheists in the West who would laugh at the "insult" and who would instead feel superior and perhaps even pity toward the East for using such a tactic. So the mind-control experts decided to use the whole terrorist line to get both the religious and non-religious involved in self-destructive behavior.
As I said, the end results are what count; murder and misery. That's the payoff for the dark side.
Getting caught up in the oh-so-enticing mind trap of comparing us to them is how they catch us and make us do insane things to each other.
-FL
Happiness in the view of these researchers appears to be a lack of stress due to resource security. Food, shelter, health and crap made in China. You know; the American Dream we're all told we must follow from the cradle.
If you go about seeking these resources through conventional means and with conventional aims, then yeah, you can pin a price tag on it. We've been trained to seek out only one set of narrow solutions to life.
But if you re-build your mind and your systems for moving through life, then happiness comes with a much lower price tag. And I'm not talking about simply finding bargains on the same consumer crap. I'm talking about alternative health, energy and food systems. Knowing your food producer. Ditching the TV set. -I don't mean going out to live in the woods or in a commune or something extreme like that. I'm not talking about the hippie lifestyle, though that can work if it's done right. I'm simply saying that with the right approach and open eyes and the courage to embrace new systems because they work and not because they are promoted by the status quo, you can get by in a very healthy manner without having to play the banker's game. Many of the people I know make a LOT less than $75,000, and they are among the healthiest, strongest, most capable and, by far, the happiest people I've ever known. I wonder if the guys who created this study know what it means to be really happy. As it happens, I also know a bunch of people who make more than $75,000 and while there are certainly some happy people among them who have figured this stuff out, the demographic also seems to include a whole lot of directionless, boring and empty people who are demonstrably NOT happy. I've seen many who are always living with this odd tension they cannot name or put their finger on, or are even aware of, but I see them walk around with a slightly pinched expression as though they just know on some level that they missed the train to somewhere they were hoping to visit but somehow forgot.
-FL
Oh dear. Sir, you scare me. Not because I think you're right, but because I think you're a fruitcake.
That you felt compelled to pipe up and voice your rejection suggests something about your fundamental nature. And no, it's probably not what you'd like to think.
Sorry.
-FL
When hostages are taken, when people are killed, when terrorists use terror to spread their message, what is the ONE thing which never, ever happens?
Their demands and manifestos are NOT made public. Why? Because this encourages similar crimes. So something here is seriously off.
Mind control is quite real; Manchurian Candidate style mind programming works; we know this. You can make people, using hypnotism and drugs and personality splitting trauma, to do whatever you want them to do on auto-pilot. This stuff works, and it would therefore be naive to assume that it isn't used.
My guess is that this whole current example was deliberately put together so as to seed the public with the idea that the populace needs culling so that when the authorities take action to cull the population, (as it always intended to, via all those empty prison camps on U.S. soil), the public will be mired down in debate. It is of particularly convenient timing because Bill Gates' bullshit foundation for population reduction has been caught with creepy ties to Monsanto. (i.e., Population reduction through engineered food shortages.)
Heck, read the responses here; there are actually people on Slashdot who think that culling the population is a good idea. -Of course, nobody has explained to them that THEY will be included among the culled. (What? You think they only kill people in Africa? Your white, pasty arse is too good for the gas chamber? Ha. Think again. The economy is being sunk for a reason. Caucasians were useful for a time, used to invent the tools of technological/industrial domination, but the Chinese are the favored race because they are genetically better at knowing their place.)
People consistently fail to take into account when considering what is best for the human race that we are in the present position of over-population by design, and were put here exactly by the very ones who are now trying to program us to accept our own harvesting.
-FL
I agree.
These days, if you can swim your way through the sewage of media and entertainment without losing such basic perspectives, then you are basically super-human.
-FL
Bill Gates? Is that you?
-FL
Yes, all the research into how to "Manufacture Consent" has shown us that a significant portion of the population is indeed cattle which can be easily manipulated, managed and bled without it ever being aware of the fact.
Why market to the small percentage of thinking humans when the real money is in bleeding cows?
Advertising and marketing, (essentially global mind-control), is a depressing reality. It works. And it hurts to watch because, even though I eat them, I still think cows are nice animals. They're so trusting and gentle.
This is why free-range is important to me. If I'm going to consume lower life forms in order to continue my own existence, I want to make sure they live good lives.
The same holds for humans. Apple pampers the livestock.
-FL
Asian sales to the West are hurting, I guess, now that a third of Americans are looking seriously at homelessness.
I notice that this kind of spam is picking up in frequency, which is probably a kind of desperation tactic. I know that whenever possible I "Buy Western". It's actually not all that hard; just don't buy crappy, stupid things made in the East. If somebody started making computer parts over here, I'd be set.
Now if only we could take the psychopathic high business/political class who destroyed America and drown them in the lifeless waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the world would be set!
Looks like the water viscosity of the Gulf has caused the Gulf Stream circuit to collapse. For real. Who knows how this will fuck up the planet, but it appears that this is the other shoe dropping. Ice Age, here we come!
Have you shot a psychopath in the head today? (You know, for killing us all?)
-FL
Well, that's a shame. I confess I had my hopes up a bit there.
-You decided to hang your coat on the post which didn't take any work to deal with.
I even put a compliment at the bottom of the other as a tip of the hat for accepting the challenge it represented, but instead you chose to go for the easy, dirty kill rather than ask specific questions or make any efforts.
There are numerous flaws in your above thinking, but you seem to have chosen a path which would make my pointing them out a labor of futility.
So unless you've got something useful to add, I'll bid you a goodbye now.
Good luck out there!
-FL
Yeah, or further analysis will show the effect is real, they'll discover amazing new physics, win a Nobel Prize and get their names in every future physics text.
Sure there may be some resistance to and skepticism of the idea (and this "hm I'm skeptical" isn't even close to the resistance some ideas that successfully changed science forever faced), but that's only natural when the hypothesis seems to contradict existing evidence. When and if they are able to collect more convincing data and rule out alternative explanations, or make successful predictions based on their idea, you'll find the skepticism reduced in direct proportion.
This is certainly the ideal, but I'm afraid I'm far too cynical to believe that there isn't more than simply two forces acting here. (More, that is, than the force of ignorance and the force of knowledge.) I believe, and there is ample evidence, for a third force; that of fear. -Fear, specifically, of losing control. -Which is, of course, the basic, boiled down simple version, but it is this fear which prompts advertisers to manipulate populations into buying certain products, (from razor blades to presidents). It is the same fear which keeps the true state of technological advancement a secret hidden away on military proving grounds.
I think the basic difference between us, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you don't believe that people lie to one another or that they manipulate or try to control one another, or that if they do, people are too smart for these tactics to ever succeed.
As history has shown repeatedly. What's funny is that if their hypothesis is shown to be true, it'll become mainstream and folks like you will be calling that the new "conventional wisdom and authority" that nobody is allowed to question.
Really? You think I exist in a perma-state of rebellion for no reason other than it suits me? Like a fashion or sense of self? Assumptions, if you are not careful, will often say a great deal about the person making them, so you might want to watch where you fling yours. No, you are making a false reading of me. The problem is that I have a fairly good idea of what is actually going on and what the shape of reality actually looks like; if mainstream culture somehow caught up with that, I would feel as though the world were on the right track. Mainstream culture, however, so long as the power remains as it is under the current paradigm, will not be allowed to know the true shape of reality. Not unless the walls break down. This IS happening to some extent; psychopaths do tend to kill the host and cause their own support systems to rapidly decay, but there are control systems operating above them which are still very powerful. They are ALSO failing, but sadly, I don't think we're anywhere even close to "out of the woods". Indeed, I strongly suspect that billions of people are going to meet their ends in total ignorance.
What's funny is how you say this, but we only know anything about the truly bizarre and unfathomably weird ways the universe works because scientists thought WAY outside the box and figured these things out. But because you've locked yourself into this "mainstream science is dogmatic and only I am the free thinker" box, you can't see it.
Hardly. The industrial revolution was carefully shaped. The out-of-the-box thinkers were guided and allowed to believe whatever they wanted. The whole world is a stage, and the amazing part is that people think the lines on their scripts are coming from their own souls when nothing could be further from the truth.
But of course, that will be difficult (or impossible?) for you to understand. How could you? Your structure for collecting knowledge doesn't sound like it includes anything which is not approved by orthodox science and culture.
But because you've locked yourself into this "mainstream science is dogmatic and only I am the free thinker
Well good thing that isn't how it's done. Instead, the patterns humans see are examined in detail, with actual data and the scientific rigor necessary to separate accurate observations of real patterns, from false matches. We're only truly good at recognizing patterns directly related to survival -- the appearance of family, whether the members of another tribe coming close appear friendly or hostile, what a tiger hiding in a bush looks like, or the appearance and behaviors of pray animals, or the types and locations of tasty fruits. Everything else -- and even those -- are highly susceptible to the common failings of various biases and logical fallacies. It takes effort and discipline to eliminate these things, and once you do, you find that many of the patterns humans thought they had recognized turned out to be completely false. Some are not, though, and become established science.
This is both true and completely false. It sounds great though, which is the point of a useful rationalization. But seriously; you're telling me that we're only good at recognizing patterns directly related to our survival? Well then how am I able to separate pencil crayons from markers? Or nickles from quarters? Or pick out the funny comic strips? Or the good books from the dull ones. Or the attractive paintings from the ugly ones. Either, according to your premise, we must allow that the pattern recognition skills evolved directly for survival can also be applied to non-survival critical scenarios, or we must simply say that you are wrong.
Including the patterns seen by scientists. It's humorously detached from reality to say that scientists reject all pattern locks based on scientific dogma, when their own intuitive pattern matching is how most scientists come up with their initial ideas.
You remind me of a teacher I once had who explained why the Democratic system of Government is a smooth-running, wonderful system. He pointed to all the checks and balances in place and drew lovely flowcharts and completely failed to recognize the problem that many of the people involved in government are corrupt bastards intent on breaking systems for personal gain, or that such people had indeed found many successful ways to do this. He seemed to not even hear any of this when the issue and examples were raised. He just looked vaguely confused and went back to his pattern. -In a similar manner, I note that you ignored my comment regarding psychological issues among scientists (and all people, actually), stemming from school-yard bullying and sexual anxieties which lead to a vast array of personal issues preventing clear thinking.
Typically, people respond to this by pretending nothing was said, or perhaps they simply fail to hear me. I don't know, but for whatever reason, you just demonstrated that phenomenon once again while describing the ideal version of science. I have no problem with the ideal version of science. But it doesn't really work that way, and if you think it does, you are living in a fantasy. The problem is, you are not alone in that fantasy. Most people seem to live in a peculiar sort of dream state all the time without being aware of it.
Astrology is a perfect example of human pattern-matching run amok due to confirmation bias and other failings of the undisciplined mind. People will always tell you about the times they met some aggressive alpha male and asked them if they were an Aries and they were! They won't tell you about the times they were wrong, often because they don't remember. They won't tell you about the time they met someone with no obvious personality quirks and so didn't bother asking them their sign. If they're taking money from you in exchange for a reading, they sure as hell won't tell you that your subconscious body language in response to their vague pronouncements is telling them what they need to know to further tune their statements to convince you that the Stars Know All. Astrology i
I started to address the points in your post, but your grammar is garbled up in a way which is abnormal for you, so I thought you might be in a weird head-space and that you might be regretting having hit the "Submit" button.
Would you like a do-over or should I just jump in and eviscerate your post, donkey-speak and all?
-FL
When I first saw the original article earlier this week, my immediate reaction was, "Bait & Switch. Better to sit this one out." -This seems like another small scale version of the Fake Moon Landing; innocently presented to invite curiosity, and then behead those foolish enough to stick their necks out and question conventional wisdom and authority. A great way to remind people that they will be punished for thinking without permission.
We'll have to see how this unfolds, but I'm getting a witch-hunt feel off this. I wouldn't be surprised if the authors of the original study are revealed later on to be the academic equivalent of child molesters or something.
The only fools, though, will be the people who allow this kind of tactic to throw them off the scent. The universe works in weird ways, and you can't be put off by this kind of silliness if you want to explore. You will NEVER have permission or approval to explore outside the box. Never. You just have to ignore the protests and get on with educating yourself. The TV talking head people can scowl all they want. Only cowards are prevented by laughter and the hairy eyeball!
-FL
Advice:
"Don't eat surprise food you find on the ground unless it's a strawberry and was growing there."
"Don't plug in surprise computer media you find on the ground unless you have autoplay turned off."
-FL
Autorun is one of Microsoft's more frustrating contributions to the world.
But what is still more idiotic, is how user-unfriendly the path is to shutting it off. Microsoft's very own page on the issue...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715
-FL
I mis-read it as, "Photoshop 1.3 Beginner's Guide"
And I thought, "Wow! Now THERE'S something really interesting! I wonder what the author's logic was to have gone and written a modern book on such an out-of-date piece of software? Cool!"
Then it got boring very fast. -Not that the real subject isn't interesting and relevant, but it sure isn't as intriguing as the false idea!
-FL
How does Schmidt feel about Taiwan depicting him as evil?
Never had a whole country despise me before.
Though, lately. . . Maybe Taiwan has the right idea.
-FL
I think the subconscious desire to see patterns where there are none, and to read more into the patterns that are there than actually exists, and to be unsatisfied with the real mechanisms behind why they exist and yearn for something "deeper", can be even stronger. Human beings are pattern matching machines to the point where it takes great self-discipline to avoid seeing false ones, and we love to ascribe meaning to every pattern we see real or not. But then we are unhappy when the true nature of the pattern is revealed. For thousands of years mankind has dreamed of a world invisible to our senses, something that permeated space all around us and could let us connect to others thousands of miles away. And then it turns out that such a thing exists, in the electromagnetic field. Oh but that's manipulated with boring old science and tools, so it doesn't count. So they still look for their vague "energy", while ignoring the real mysteries of the universe.
This is a very valid point, and it is one which must be wrestled with. The problem is that people, especially those in the sciences, have a tendency to go too far the other way, to the point of ignoring their perceptive abilities altogether. We are good at recognizing patterns because recognizing patterns improves the chances of survival. One would think that our naturally evolved systems have gotten pretty darned good at it. There are certainly false positives, but to ignore ALL pattern locks based on popular scientific dogma seems foolish to me. -Especially when much of that dogma, in otherwise smart and educated people, is wrapped up in psychological knots related to childhood bullying and sexual anxieties. This leads to horribly dissonant logic which cannot be seen unless one has worked on untying those knots most of us are afflicted with due to the nature of the education system itself. Most people never touch that stuff throughout their lives. I know very, very few people in the sciences who have worked on this aspect of themselves, and as such, their views and thinking remains quite distorted.
One example resulting from this distortion is the reaction to taboo material. Astrology, for instance, claims that the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun bears some effect upon personality. Personality is a result of subtle atomic reactions in the brain, (I am supposing). Those who (improperly) use science have laughed at this claim, saying that it is "impossible" for a distant stellar body to have any impact upon such reactions. And yet, right now, we are in the process of recognizing that the subtle atomic reactions which govern nuclear decay rates are indeed doing some peculiar things in time with the Earth's relative position to the Sun.
I am not afraid of allowing my pattern recognizers to do their work and indeed, to hone their ability. I have become quite good at sorting false signal from true, but more importantly, I have become quite good at allowing myself to be wrong. Because there ARE false patterns, and when one tests for them, or when another person points out an error, it is important to be able to let go of false data. But I believe it is also important to use our skills of observation and to work on honing them rather than let them atrophy in favor of only using empirical study. I think it is enormously advantageous to use both.
In other words, I'm not going to wait around for authority figures to approve of my explorations. It's useful when they get around to it, (if they ever do), but to sit waiting is an unnecessary limitation, particularly when the authorities these days are largely corrupt and psychopathic. We have been taught to mistrust ourselves, and I am convinced that this is a manipulation to prevent us from becoming powerful and aware.
But everybody must believe as they will. This is where my thinking has taken me, I have found it fascinating and rewarding, (if sometimes humbling), and I do not need to be told I am allowed to be here. This is where Religion and low Science overlap; its practitioners are meek and they seek approval. True Science does not seek approval; it seeks corroboration for logical reasons, but there aren't as many true scientists in the world as one might suppose.
-FL
That would make sense, except the nature of the observations can't be explained as being simply the result of repetitive behavioral mechanisms.
It's really not the sort of thing I can express easily. But if you are interested, it can be observed. Just map backwards from where you are in your life and look at the major events which have affected you and the kinds of personalities which surrounded you at those times. If you are old enough to have traveled through the circuit three or more times, you'll have enough data to work with. Then it's like one of those 3D posters where you have to un-cross your eyes in order to see the effect. It looks like a mess of fuzz until it leaps into view.
But I've never met anybody who is willing to do this or who has any interest in it. I suspect this might be due to a subconscious desire to ride the patterns in earnest without knowing how the mechanism works. Perhaps because it's hard to take the universe seriously when you can see the wheels turning. After a while, you begin to feel stuck in time, if that makes any sense. When you try to change things, you realize that you can't, or if you do, events and values surrounding you will alter to balance the equation so that there is no change.
Whatever.
Don't bother. It's just something which you'll explore if you feel like exploring. I really wouldn't recommend it to most people.
-FL